Excerpt (approximately 4 minutes) from the oral history with Vernon Patterson, who was
interviewed by Paul Ericksen in 1985. This excerpt came from audio tape T6 in Collection 5.
The accompanying photograph detail of R.A. Torrey comes from the records of Overseas
Missionary Fellowship (formerly China Inland Mission). For more information about
Patterson
click here.

NOTE: This portion of the interview was conducted while driving in Charlotte. Automobile
noises can therefore be heard as background noise throughout the excerpt. Mrs. Patterson, riding
in the backseat joins the interview partway through.

PATTERSON: Of course, I knew about Torrey for years. And I believe the first time I met him
[pauses] was [pauses]...the first time I remember right now was when he came to Charlotte to
hold a meeting in 1927, which was the year before he died. He was... he...the...the meeting was
in the first Presbyterian church and I [pauses]...let's see now, when was that? [pauses] We had
just joined there. I was about to think whether I'd been elected an elder there at that time or not.
I'm not quite sure. I believe it was later that I...that I was elected an elder there. But he didn't
accept social engagements except one. He had moved to Asheville [North Carolina] at that time
and was living about a block from where Vida's [Mrs. Patterson] mother lived and while...and so
Vida's mother became a very intimate friend with Mrs. Torrey. But when Dr. Torrey....

MRS. PATTERSON: [unclear]

PATTERSON: Huh?

MRS. PATTERSON: Dr. didn't even realize it [?]

PATTERSON: Doctor what?

MRS. PATTERSON: They both were intimate with Mother, Dr. Torrey.

PATTERSON: Yes, well, of course. The both of us were...became intimate friends of them. So
he came out and had dinner with us. Our children were babies then and we asked him to take
them up and pray for them which he did. And in that...at that [pauses] time after dinner he told
me about his last meeting in Liverpool. He said that he had spoken to thirty thousand people at
that time. This was in 1927 he told me that. He thought...he said that the last meeting he had
spoken to thirty thousand people and he thought that was almost a miracle. And he explained it
this way. They had a tabernacle that would seat twelve thousand five hundred people, and
twenty-five...twenty-five hundred more could be crowded in, so the tabernacle filled the first time
making fifteen thousand people. And after the service they...they went out and fifteen thousand
people came in again and filled it. So he spoke to thirty thousand people. Well, you can imagine
what a strain that might have been on his voice with no amplifiers of any kind. So he was greatly
impressed with that. But he said when he got back to this country he was asked to speak on
radio. Radio was just beginning to get widespread. And he was asked to come up to Minneapolis,
I believe, and speak over the radio. And after he spoke on the radio [laughs] he said the...the
radio ope...the radio manager told him that he had reached five hundred thousand people and he
was just astonished about that, five hundred thousand people. He was overjoyed at that. This was
about a year before he died. That's the way it was then.